


Magna di Curant, Parva Neglegunt

by lainfiquette



Series: Magna di Curant, Parva Neglegunt [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Cage Trauma, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Emotionally Repressed, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Multi, Non-Consensual Bondage, Physical Abuse, Rape, Romance, Sexual Abuse, Slow Burn, Triggers, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-02 06:24:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4049545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lainfiquette/pseuds/lainfiquette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When High Enchanter Katalina Trevelyan asks her younger sister, Elspeth, to accompany her to the Conclave that is occurring in Haven, Elspeth is reluctant to go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Exordium

A pale, thin, petite woman, dressed in a loose grey tunic and baggy black trousers, stood over a large cauldron. She stirred the cauldron with a large paddle, the lower half of her face was covered in a handkerchief against the fuse emitting from the salve she was making. Her flame colored hair was pulled up in a messy bun, with damp, sweaty, tendrils escaping to frame her face and ears. A scar ran from above her left brow, down over her eye, ending in a branch in the middle of her cheek. Her eyes were a vibrant emerald, freckles sprinkled her pale skin. She turned slightly as a door opened, letting light into the shadowy room, as a tall woman with the same hair and coloring, except for her eyes, which were a piercing sapphire, entered the room. 

"Elsie, mater said you would be here. Should've figured you were working with that noxious brew." The tall woman smiled wanly as the smaller woman shrugged. "Andraste's breath, that brew is ripe. Pater will be thrilled that no flies will be getting gear his horses, but nobody else will want to either." 

"Nonsense, Kat, the smell will go as it cools. You would know that if you ever helped make the stuff. It always surprises me, being that you are the one trained in alchemy." Elsie continued to stir the cauldron as she watched the taller woman sit down. Kat shrugged at Elsie as she pinched her nose close. "Of course, you don't ever deal with the anti-bug juice and make a habit of staying away from the room when I'm brewing it, so why are you here soror?" Elsie asked as she stopped stirring to add more wood to the fire burning under the cauldron.

"How would you feel about going on a trip with me?" Elsie shot up from where she knelt by the cauldron poking at the fire with a poker. Her face was pale and she looked like she was ready to bolt from the room. "That well, huh? Come on, Elsie, you can't hide here forever. You need to get out and experience the world. Meet people, make friends. Maybe find love." Kat waved her free hand in the air to emphasize the room. Elsie snorted at the last part of Kat's statement, irritated at her old sister's insistence that she need to learn more about how the world operated outside the Trevelyan estate, especially after the ten years she had been away from it. 

She knew that Kat didn't understand how after years of being imprisoned, she was perfectly content with staying where she was. "If you happened to forget, Kat, I got to see what was outside the Trevelyan estate and I still have nightmares about it." Not only did she have nightmares, there were days when she couldn't even leave from her room due to the panic of what might be outside the door. On those days she hid in her wardrobe, refusing all visitors to include her family and the servants. 

Kat grimaced at her sister, tired of her using any excuse to stay where she was, which to Kat's mind, was stuck. "Elsie, that could not be called the world. That man was a monster that kept you caged. The fact that he kept you caged shows that. People aren't like that. Well, most people aren't like that. Come on, it would be something new. A new adventure. We can go to Orlais afterwards, you know, go shopping. I could take you to meet Grand Enchanter Vivienne, she's a wonder with alchemy You could compare notes." Kat held up her hand as Elsie continued to shake her head in disagreement. "Come on Elsie, it should be perfectly safe there, I mean the Divine will be there for the Maker's sake. What could happen? I really do need a companion that hasn't been stuffed up in a tower for most of their life. Also, the First Enchanter and I agreed it might help to have someone who has loved ones that are both mages and templars." 

How could I help? I mean other than taking notes, you handwriting is atrocious. That's probably the true reason the First Enchanter wants me to go with you. I was planning on helping pater with the breeding this year, he promised to go over it. I think he wants me to start learning the ropes." Elsie sighed as she began to stir the cauldron again.

"Elsie, you can learn that stuff anytime. This will be history! Plus it will be at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Tell me that doesn't peak you interests." Kat looked at her sister, trying not to grin. She knew how her sister loved history and ancient buildings. "Don't make me get mater in here to talk some sense into you."

Elsie threw her hands up in defeat, knowing once her mother's aid was enlisted, she'd not get a moment of peace until she agreed. Kate smiled, knowing she had won, not that it was hard to do against Elsie.

"When do we leave?" Elsie asked with some trepidation as she began stirring the cauldron again.

"We'll leave two days from now, I'd hate for you not to get this noxious brew to pater." With that, Kat left the dark room, leaving Elsie to finish the brew by herself. Elsi sighed as her thoughts turned to the idea of traveling from here to the Temple of Sacred Ashes in Ferelden. It was not a journey she was eager to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did some grammar and context updates. Nothing to serious.


	2. Omne Initium Difficile Est

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Elspeth Trevelyan finds herself a prisoner with no memory as to how she ended up there.

Pain ran up her left arm, pulsing as if her heart was in her arm, causing a whimper to draw from her lips. Against her knees, hard stone floor dug into her legs, cold and foreboding. The air around her face was cool and dank, her hair framed her face, wisps moving in the slight breeze. She trembled slightly as she listened to the sounds of water dripping down the walls and torches flickering that reminded her of things past that she was sure she had escaped. Her emerald colored eyes opened slowly as she turned her left hand over to reveal a shining shard of emerald light that sparked, causing debilitating pain to run from tips of her left fingers, up her shoulder, to her head, and down into her legs. She gasped unable to hold back the surprise, fear, and pain that over took her. As she looked up, several guards surrounded her with their swords pulled.

The door in front of her opened to two women who strode in with purpose. The first woman was tall with short hair the color of coal. Her chestnut brown eyes were piercing as she stared in fury at Elspeth.  The second woman was pale and dainty, vivid red hair peeked from under a dusky blue hood. Her grey blue eyes gleamed with curiosity and anger in her thin freckled face. 

The first woman bent down close to her right ear, her voice coming out in little more than a growl. "Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now." The woman stood up straight and began to pace around her, her armored boots resounding loudly in the stone room. "The conclave is destroyed, everyone who attended is dead. Except for you." Her voice held accusation and was condemning as she came around to Elspeth's face and looked down at her.

Elspeth looked at the woman in wide-eyed terror, her voice coming out as barely a whisper, almost inaudible over the water dripping in the room. "What do you mean everyone's dead?" The atmosphere of the place had her flinching away from the woman expecting to be struck, as the woman reached down and grabbed her shackled wrists, lifting up her left hand which continued to glow eerily emerald in the shadowy room.

"Explain _THIS_." The woman dropped the shackles back into Elspeth's lap and began to pace around her again. 

"I can't" Elspeth whispered, at a loss of what the thing on her hand was, much-less where or how she had gotten it.

"What do you mean you _CAN'T?_ " The dark haired woman continued to pace around her,  as the pale woman began pacing on the other side of Elspeth, watching her and the dark haired woman.

"I don't know what that is, or how it got there." Elspeth whispered nervously, afraid that anything she said could see her locked up forever or worse, dead. Whatever the thing on her hand was, she didn't want it, because not even flaring, it felt as if her arm was on fire. 

_"YOU'RE LYING!"_ The dark woman grabbed the front of her tunic, picking her up a bit from the ground before slamming her back down. Elspeth bit back the cry of pain as her legs that had fallen to sleep began to wake back up, with pins and needles running up from her toes to her knees. 

The other woman pulled the dark haired woman back by the shoulder. "We need her, Cassandra." Both Cassandra and the pale hooded woman turned to look at her.

"I can't believe it. All those people....dead? How can that be? Are you sure, everyone is dead?" Elspeth felt panic as hysteria began to creep into her voice. She remembered the throngs of people who had been at the Conclave. Children running around as parents came to witness the momentous occasion. Her own sister, who had been an envoy to the Conclave on behalf of Ostwick Circle. Elspeth had only been at the Conclave due to her sister's request for her to accompany her. It had to be a lie, that she was the only one left alive. 

The pale hooded woman towered over her now, staring down at her. It felt as though her eyes could see through her, see everything that made her up. "Do you remember what happened? How this began?"

"I came to the Conclave with my elder sister. I remember arriving and then... running? Things were chasing me, and then.... a woman?" Elspeth shook her head confused at the large gap of memory on even being at the Conclave. When she tried to remember being there, there was nothing there. She knew her and Kat had been headed there, but she couldn't remember much more than them leaving their campsite to head there and then suddenly running in a weird misty green area, uphill over broken rocks, from things she wasn't even sure she could begin to describe. Every time she tried to grasp the memory it slipped further from her into darkness. 

"A woman?" The pale woman stood back in surprise and continued to stare at Elspeth.

"She reached out to me, but then...." She inhaled sharply as what felt like a spike dug into her head, making what little memory she could grasp, scatter from her.

"Go to the forward camp, Leliana, I will take her to the Rift." Cassandra spoke, motioning towards the door. The hooded woman, named Leliana, nodded and exited from the dungeon. Cassandra knelt before Elspeth, removed the shackles, and then helped her to her feet.

"What did happen?" Elspeth asked, her voice barely a whisper, afraid to know the answer but desperate to find out how she was in the situation that she was in.

"It will be _easier_ to show you." Cassandra opened the door to the dungeon and beckoned Elspeth to follow her. Upon walking up the stairs and stepping from what appeared to be a chantry, Elspeth was greeted by a sky torn asunder with large emerald hole with rocks floating a little below it. "We call it "The Breach". It's a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It's not the only such rift, just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the conclave."

"An explosion can do that?" Elspeth asked in alarmed confusion. She had no idea how they believed she could, much less would, cause such a thing to happen.

Cassandra walked towards her. "This one did. Unless we act, the Breach may grow until it swallows the world." As she spoke a long emerald trail erupted from the rift in the sky, causing the mark on Elspeth's hand to flare, knocking her to the ground in the sudden increase in pain that felt like her left side was literally on fire and being stabbed continuously over and over by tiny daggers. She screamed out, unable to stop her reaction to the increased pain from the mark. She panted as she pulled her left arm in towards her abdomen, her fingers wrapping around her palm in an effort to ride out the pain. As it began to fade, Cassandra knelt down in front of her. "Each time the breach expands, your mark spreads.... and it is killing you. It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn't much time."

Elspeth gasped for breath, her words coming out as barely a whisper. "I understand."

"Then..?" Cassandra asked, her voice hopeful.

"I'll do what I can. Whatever it takes." Elspeth nodded, her thoughts to what anyone in her family would do in her position. They would try to help no matter what the cost might be. If it saved lives, it was worth trying whatever Cassandra thought would work, even if it meant she died in the process.

Cassandra helped her from the snow covered ground guiding her past the watching townsfolk and angry soldiers. She hoped she had a chance to help before an angry mob decided to kill her. She felt some relief that Cassandra was next to her, pushing her along, she had a feeling this was the only reason there wasn't an angry mob on her tearing her to pieces. "The people of Haven mourn our most Holy, Divine Justinia, head of the Chantry. The Conclave was hers. It was a chance for peace between mages and templars. She brought their leaders together. Now, they are dead." Cassandra's voice was sad as she spoke, walking behind Elspeth and continuing to guide her towards a gateway that was opened by guards at their approach. "We lash out, like the sky, but we must think beyond ourselves. As she did. Until the breach is sealed." Cassandra stopped Elspeth from going any further forward, stepping in front of her and pulling a knife. "There will be a trial, I can promise no more." Elspeth nodded as Cassandra cut the rope binding her wrists together. "Come, it is not far." Cassandra beckoned for Elspeth to follow her.

"Where are you taking me?" Elspeth looked down at her freed hands and then at Cassandra.

"Your mark must be tested on something smaller than the breach." Elspeth followed behind Cassandra across the bridge to another gateway being guarded. She heard people saying the Chant of Light as she walked by them, injured people crying and moaning, the dead bodies that littered the walk way made her want to cry or vomit, she wasn't quite sure which, maybe both. Cassandra's voice rang out to the guards as they approached the gateway, "Open the gate, we are heading into the valley." With Cassandra's words Elspeth and Cassandra left the relative safety of the bridge for the unknown dangers of the valley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omne initium difficile est: every beginning is difficult
> 
> Elspeth's wonderful memory of nothing being there but still knowing the pattern of things actually does happen. I've had a case of this, and it is no fun. Being able to put together the pattern but still having a large black hole in your memory sucks.


	3. quam daemonum, et Pyritidem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra and Elspeth travel into the valley to test Elspeth's mark.

Upon exiting the gateway from the bridge, Cassandra and Elspeth began to walk at a brisk pace up the hill along a well traveled dirt road. The front of the gateway was fortified with multiple fighting positions built to provide cover for the soldiers guarding the gateway. Soldiers and villagers rushed past them back towards the bridge they had just left. As people rushed past them, Elspeth heard someone call out, "Maker, its the end of the world!" As they continued to walk up the path to the next gateway, emerald flames rained down from the Breach towards the ground in the the distance. A large emerald shiver went through the Breach as it expanded in the sky. Elspeth fell over as her hand sparked and flared in emerald, grabbing her left wrist as she fell. She cried out as her knees hit the ground, unable to hold herself up as the feeling of being on fire stretched out across her body. Cassandra knelt down to help her up, having to literally pull her from the ground.

"The pulses are coming faster now." Cassandra brushed Elspeth off and patted in her shoulder in an awkward attempt of comfort that Elspeth found somewhat calming. The two of them continued towards the next gateway when Elspeth paused for a moment. "The larger the Breach grows, the more rifts appear, the more demons we face."

"How _did_ I survive the blast?" Elspeth asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer to the question, but also hoping that maybe it meant that someone else had survived.

"They said you... stepped out of a rift, then fell unconscious. They say a woman was in the rift behind you. No one knows who she was." Cassandra's voice was calm but puzzled as she continued to lead Elspeth forward through the next gateway to another bridge. Suddenly as they neared the middle of the bridge, an emerald flame from the Breach above rained down, crumbling the bridge under their feet in its wake. Elspeth held back a scream as she felt the solid ground disappear from beneath her feet and groaned slightly as her body impacted the broken rocks from the bridge and rolled down to the ice covered river below. She raised her head to glance at the Breach in the sky and then gasped slightly as another emerald flame landed in front of herself and Cassandra. Both her and Cassandra pulled themselves to their feet as from the green flame emerged a figure that Elspeth had never seen before. The figure was dark and shadowy appearing to be wrapped in worn, torn cloth.

Cassandra pulled her sword from her side and tore her shield from her back, ready to engage the figure before them. "Stay behind me!" Cassandra ran forward, her shield up as she impacted with the shadowy figure. As Cassandra ran forward, a dark cloud began to emerge from the ground. Elspeth looked around warily as another shadowy figure began to emerge from the dark cloud. Her eyes lit on a fallen short bow and a quiver of scattered arrows, which she ran to snatch from the ground. As she moved, the dark cloud sparked the same emerald as the Breach in the sky and fully in front of her stood another of the shadowy figures that Cassandra was currently engaging further away with her sword and shield. She placed her arrow and drew back the string of the bow, for once glad that her mother had been insistent in her getting back in the habit of using it. She gritted her teeth as she heard the first arrow hit the shadowy figure with a sickening thunk, hoping she didn't vomit. She dodged, just barely missing claws ripping into her unprotected chest, instead tearing into her left arm. She cried out as she fitted another arrow to her bow and once again shot at the shadowy figure.

She heard Cassandra cry out from behind the shadowy figure, drawing it away from her as she once again released another arrow, this time into the figure's back. It didn't turn as it rushed to engage Cassandra. With another strike from her arrows the creature went down as Cassandra sunk her sword into it.

 "It's over." Elspeth swallowed the nausea she was feeling as she released a sigh of relief as she headed towards Cassandra. She turned to face Cassandra as Cassandra walked towards her with her sword raised. 

"Drop your weapon. _Now._ " Cassandra's voice was angry as she looked ready to slice Elspeth in half. Elspeth dropped the bow and put her hands up in front of her.

"Alright, have it your way." Elspeth nodded as she reached to grab the quiver of arrows from her back, but Cassandra lowered her sword and frowned.

 Cassandra sheathed her sword. "Keep it, I cannot protect you, and I cannot expect you to be defenseless." Cassandra bent over and picked the bow up from the ground and handed it back to Elspeth. Elspeth nodded before she clipped it in the clasp on the quiver. "I should remember you agreed to come willingly. Take these potions, Maker know what we will face." 

 

"Where are all your soldiers?" Elspeth asked as she looked around where they had landed, taking the belt bag of potions Cassandra held out to her.

"At the forward camp, or fighting. We are on our own, for now." Cassandra said as she started moving forward. She stopped to kneel down by a dead body, tossing Elspeth a scribe's hood from the body's head. Elspeth caught it and looked at it with slight apprehension, she really couldn't mean she wanted her to put it on.

"Put it on, it'll give you some defense. At least more than you have now." Elspeth held back her nausea as she followed Cassandra's direction and put on the hood. She tried not to think of the fact that not only a few seconds ago, a dead person had been wearing it. Hopefully, it would do her more good than it had done him. With that though, Elspeth turned to vomit what little remained in her stomach. Cassandra turned to look at her, and when Elspeth stood fully, nodded and continued onward.

After another battle against more of the shadowy creatures, which Cassandra informed her were demons known as Shades and wispy ghosts that had a range as good as her bow, called Wisps, Cassandra and Elspeth continued forward. "Ah, they're falling from the Breach!" Elspeth watched as more emerald flares hit the ground and then demons arose from them. She stood back and drew her bow, engaging the demons around Cassandra as she engaged the one directly in front of Elspeth. What felt like hours to Elspeth as they engaged the demons was only minutes she knew as they defeated the demons. Cassandra knelt down to dig an object from the dissipating, throwing it to Elspeth. "Keep that in a side pouch, Minaeve will want it when we get back." Elspeth tried not to vomit again as she handled the damp shred of cloth, wondering if now Cassandra had done that on purpose in order to get her to vomit again. She wouldn't put it past the woman currently.

They continued at a brisk pace past the dissipating demons corpses and headed up a set of stairs. As they ran up the stairs, Cassandra called back down to her. "We're getting close to the Rift, you can hear the fighting."

"Who's fighting?" Elspeth gasped out and she gulped in air and continued to run behind Cassandra in attempt to keep up.

"You'll see soon, we must help them." Cassandra stopped and turned slightly, offering Elspeth her hand and letting her catch her breath momentarily before continuing onward. Elspeth wearily followed her up the rest of the stairs to be confronted by a gateway that was on fire on one side and a crumbled wall that revealed several people fighting more of the demons as well as a pulsing emerald jewel that looked very much like the mark on her hand. Cassandra jumped down the overhang headed towards the people fighting and Elspeth followed with a panicked gasp of air. Elspeth looked around her and jumped to where a wall had been slightly leveled but would give her the advantage of being able to see the whole battle that was currently on going. She drew her bow and began to target the demons that seemed to be overwhelming what appeared to be soldiers to the left of the crumbling building. Cassandra plunged head forward into the chaos with her sword and shield drawn, yelling at the demons to get their attention and draw them from the others. On the right, close to the emerald gem that danced in the sky, an elf with well traveled clothes (and a rather bald head) shooting spells from what appeared to be a rather ancient piece of wood, and a dwarf with a crossbow that would make her mother's mouth water (and apparently an inordinate amount of chest hair) engaged the demons as well. 

As the demons fell to Cassandra and the soldier's weapons, Elspeth hopped down from her perch as she reclipped her bow. She made her way to Cassandra's side when the rather bald elf grabbed her left hand shoving towards where the gleaming emerald gem had been replaced by what appeared to be an emerald mist. "Quickly, before more come through!" As he shoved her hand up towards it, she cried out as her left side felt like it was on fire again. She curled her fingers around her left palm as she attempted to snatch her arm away, and the same time the emerald mist sank into the middle of her palm and was gone. As soon as it entered her palm, she let out a gasp of release as the feeling of fire dissipated from her whole left side to just feeling like it was centered in her palm. Shortly after, the fire feeling in her palm felt more like a warm pulsing than her hand being on fire. 

"What did you do?" She turned slightly, her emerald eyes round with shock. She almost fainted from the relief of the pain, but she could feel it slowly ebbing back up from a warm pulse to a flame again.

" _I_ did nothing. The credit is yours."  The bald elf gestured towards her left hand with a slight grin, looking rather smug and pleased with himself.

Elspeth looked down at her hand. "At least this is good for something." Elspeth mumbled, irritated with the pain that was beginning to regrow in her left hand and spread up through her arm.

"Whatever magic opened the Breach in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand. I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach's wake - and it seems I was correct." Elspeth glanced at the elf from under her eyelashes, at this point really wanting to smack the smug smirk from his face as her arm began to scream at her in agony.

Cassandra patted her on the right shoulder as if reading her thoughts, "Meaning it could also close the Breach itself." Elspeth turned to look at Cassandra, realizing even through the pain in her arm, that it meant there was hope that they could close the giant hole in the sky.

"Possibly." The elf said quietly and then turned with a slight bow back to Elspeth. "It seems you hold the key to our salvation." Elspeth nodded slightly, looking up at the elf.

From behind Elspeth and Cassandra, she heard a voice ring out. "Good to know! Here I thought we'd be ass-deep in demons forever." Elspeth blushed slightly as she turned to take in the dwarf (with the forest of chest hair, which she was likely to use to describe him for a while yet) adjusting his gloves. He looked up and walked towards them as Cassandra and the elf also turned towards him. "Varric Tethras: Rogue, Storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong." The dwarf said the last part with a wink towards Cassandra who grunted in disgust.

"That's.... a nice crossbow you have there." Elspeth said as she bowed slightly in greeting. The dwarf grinned at her with a glint in his eyes.

"Ah, isn't she? Bianca and I have been through a lot together." He glanced at the crossbow over his shoulder, the look on his face one of nostalgia.

"You named your crossbow Bianca?" She nearly snorted as she held back the laugh at the tip of her tongue. She knew plenty of fighters who named their weapons in her mother's fighting school, it just surprised her and pleased her to see something so familiar so far from home.

"Of course. And she'll be great company in the valley."  He gestured towards where Elspeth and Cassandra were heading. Cassandra walked forward, an irritated look on her face as she looked down at the dwarf.

"Absolutely not. Your help is appreciated, Varric, but..." Cassandra's voice came out a barely a growl and Elspeth couldn't help but wonder what the history was between the two of them.

"Have you been in the valley lately, Seeker. Your soldiers aren't in control anymore. You need me." Varric said with a grin as he looked up at Cassandra. Cassandra wrinkled her nose and made a disgusted noise turning from him.

The bald elf approached Elspeth and pointed towards himself. "My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions. I am pleased to see you still live."

"He means, "I kept that mark from killing you while you slept." Elspeth turned to look at Varric as he spoke with a grin and then turned back to Solas.

"You seem to know a great deal about it all." Elspeth said quietly, Solas smiled at her.

"Solas is an apostate, well-versed in such matters." Cassandra spoke from over the dead body she was now pillaging for the bow that laid grasped in the corpse's hand. She walked over and handed it to Elspeth, who grimaced and took it, noting it was a much better bow than the one that was currently clipped to her back. Elspeth tossed the other bow to the ground and clipped the new one on as she listened to the ongoing conversation between Cassandra and Solas.

"Technically, all mages are now apostates, Cassandra." Solas said smuggly as he glanced at Cassandra, she shrugged. "My travels have allowed me to learn much of the Fade, far beyond the experience of any Circle mage. I came to offer whatever help I can give with the Breach. If it is not closed, we are all doomed, regardless of origin."

Elspeth nodded, "That's a commendable attitude."

"Merely a sensible one, although sense appears to be in short supply right now. Cassandra, you should know; the magic involved here is unlike any I have seen. Your prisoner is no mage, indeed, I find it difficult to imagine any mage having such power."  Solas turned to Cassandra as he addressed her about the mark on Elspeth's hand.

"Understood. We must get to the forward camp quickly." Cassandra headed towards the opening leading further down into the valley. Solas and Elspeth followed and jumped down from the crumbling building into a crevasse that opened into a large valley. On the frozen ice of a pond, demons moved back in forth as if dancing until they spotted the descending party.  Upon seeing the party, the demons rushed towards them. As Cassandra began her descent towards the demons, a barrier was cast over the party. Elspeth gritted her teeth as both her and Varric removed their weapons from their backs to engage the demons.

"Glad you brought me now, Seeker?!?" Varric called to Cassandra as one of his bolts hit a demon that was attempting to engage her from the rear. Solas froze multiple demons in place, which Elspeth then engaged with her bow, shattering them on contact with her arrows. Upon the all the demons dying and falling to the ground.

"We should check the cabins for any supplies that might help us." Cassandra motioned for them to follow her to the nearest cabin. As they entered the cabin, the party spread out to search for supplies. Varric walked up besides Elspeth as she bent over a chest.

"That's an interesting accent you have there. I'm from Kirkwall, but you're from somewhere south of there in the Free Marches, I believe." Varric said with a smirk as he watched her pull out the money from the chest and pocket in the potions bag at her hip. 

"Oh, that's quite the ear you have." Elspeth rose as Cassandra walked towards the two of them with a heavy leather coat with metal on the shoulders. Cassandra handed it to Elspeth, who then put it on, glad that it wasn't something pulled from a dead body for once.

"Oh, I'm all kinds of impressive." Varric said with a chuckle as Cassandra snorted in disgust.

"Let's go." Cassandra motioned them to leave the cabin. The group headed out and up stairs leading from the river. As they walked, Varric addressed her again.

"So, are you innocent?" Elspeth shrugged, once again attempting to dig forth the memory on how she was in the predicament that she was in to no avail.

"I don't know, I can't remember." Elspeth said with some irritation as once again where her memory should be she found nothing.

"Should've spun a story." Cassandra snorted as they continued upward.

"That's what you would've done." Varric laughed at Cassandra's disgust.

"It's more believable that way, and less likely to get you killed prematurely." Elspeth nodded as Cassandra drew her sword upon seeing multiple demons in front of them.

"I hope Leliana made it through all of this." Cassandra said with some concern as she looked around her as she drew her sword from her back.

"I wouldn't worry Seeker, she's resourceful." Varric said as he readied his crossbow beside Elspeth.

"We'll know when we reach the forward camp. Come, they have noticed us." Solas said as he cast barrier on the group before Cassandra let out a yell and ran towards the nearest demon. The fight was over shortly and they continued their trek towards the now looming gateway. On the way towards the gateway, Elspeth felt her hand flare and bit back a yelp.

"Help us, they're everywhere." As they crested the hill, another Rift with multiple demons met their sights. Elspeth nodded as she targeted a demon engaged with a soldier. The others also fell into action until the demons were eliminated. Upon the last demon dying, the green jewel of the Rift turned to a misty emerald cloud. Elspeth brought her hand up, mirroring the actions she had performed before when she had attempted to snatch her hand from Solas. Once again the Rift closed, momentarily easing the agony in her arm.

"Open the gates." The soldiers nodded and opened the gates to let the party into the camp.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quam daemonum, et Pyritidem: of demons and rifts

**Author's Note:**

> So, I got a wild hair up my bum and decided it would be fun to add some latin words in. Expect all my chapter titles to be latin, cause I'm being weird.   
> Latin Word Meanings:  
> Magna di Curant, Parva Neglegunt: The gods care about great matters, but they neglect small ones.  
> Exordium: an introductory part or beginning, esp of an oration or discourse   
> Mater: Mother  
> Pater: Father  
> Soror: Sister


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